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Monday, October 2, 2017

Yom Kippur 5778: The God Survey

The God Survey

Rabbi Alan Cook

Sinai Temple, Champaign, Illinois

Yom Kippur morning 5778

September 30, 2017

An article online recently chronicled
the demise of the fifty-year-old Dictionary of American Regional English, or
DARE. The work, now up to six volumes,
was the brainchild of University of Wisconsin professor Frederick Cassidy
beginning in 1962. Over the last
half-century, DARE engaged in fieldwork to chronicle new regional words and
safeguard local words and phrases whose usage is dwindling. But funding has run out for this
wide-reaching project, which chronicled non-regional slang words and
colloquialisms, and preserved regionalisms and dialectic differences throughout
America.[1] We run the risk that future generations will
not be able to identify a “bizmaroon” or “doodinkus,” or know what it means to
“acknowledge the corn.”[2]

It’s a natural part of human
evolution that we continually find new ways to express ourselves, particularly
in relation to complex concepts and amorphous ideas. This is particularly evident when we begin to
talk about God. It is rare that one
finds two individuals who have precisely the same conception of Who or What the
divine is. Even the great sage
Maimonides taught that one cannot accurately define God from positive
attributes; we can only state with certainty what God is not.[3] No two experiences are the same. Your mileage may vary. Certainly, part of the beauty of progressive
Jewish thought is that we are expressly given permission to determine for
ourselves what our relationship with God will be, and to what degree a
spiritual connection will play a role in our lives.

Over the past month, I invited Sinai
Temple members to participate in “The God Survey.” This enterprise was based on work done by
Rabbi Mark Dov Shapiro at another Sinai Temple—in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Rabbi Shapiro designed a
number of questions to help his congregation explore their individual
connections to God or a God-concept.
Later, Rabbi Shapiro published a book about his findings, and Reform
Judaism magazine shared excerpts of the questionnaire, inviting responses from
across the movement.[4] The survey we conducted here was adapted from
those earlier questions. Nearly sixty
individuals responded—not a bad response rate considering the limited time that
the questions were accessible. That’s
approximately ten percent of the congregation.
Respondents ranged widely across the various ages represented within our
congregation. About seventy percent of
those who participated were born Jewish, while thirty percent came to Judaism
later in life.

An old joke claims that if you ask a
question of two Jews, you’ll receive three opinions. So it comes as little surprise that the
answers to the survey were wide-ranging.
But more than 86% indicated that they spend some time wondering about
God, and 90% indicated that they felt close to God at times.[5]

To a large degree, our feelings about
God are very personal, shaped by our experiences in life and our understanding
of the world in which we live. The poet
Langston Hughes wrote:

In an envelope marked:PERSONALGod addressed me a letter. In an envelope marked:PERSONALI have given my answer. [6]

In this short poem, Hughes states what many participants in
the survey also sought to convey: that a relationship with God is inherently
individualized. Still, within the
survey, some general trends emerged.

Those who completed the survey were
asked to choose from a number of options indicating times when they have felt
close to God. By far, the most popular
selection was, “When I have been outdoors and experienced nature’s
wonders.” Many people also found a close
connection to God during worship, with nearly half of respondents indicating
that they felt God’s presence during High Holiday and Shabbat services. Others indicated that the heightened emotion
of life cycle events helped them to find a sense of God’s nearness. A handful also indicated that they
occasionally felt distant from God— such as when viewing the current state of
the world, or when helping a friend or loved one navigate through illness or
setbacks.

More than half of the participants
agreed that God exists and is present in nature. By a wide margin, participants also feel that
God directs us to engage with the world by feeding the hungry, nurturing the
sick, and engaging in deeds of justice.

Our Torah portion for this afternoon,
from the Book of Leviticus, contains the so-called “Holiness Code.” In it, we are challenged, “kedoshim t’hiyu, ki kadosh Ani Adonai
Eloheichem.—be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am Holy.”[7] In order to strive toward fulfillment of this
sacred call, we must understand what it truly means to be holy, to live in
emulation of God. The responses to the
survey suggest that many of us are taking the time to think about what such an
endeavor entails. Yet it is clear that
some questions remain.

I often wonder if the grass is
greener in other religious traditions.
When I interact with my Christian colleagues I marvel at the ease with
which they can share their faith convictions.
Remember those “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets and bumper
stickers from a few years back? At least
superficially, it would seem that they and their parishoners know exactly where
to turn, exactly what is expected of them anytime they have an ethical or
theological conundrum. I am aware that
I’m likely oversimplifying, and of course, throughout our history, we Jews have
embraced the idea of poking and prodding at the mysteries of the universe. We are Israel, those who are willing to
wrestle with God, and so inquisitiveness is part of our birthright.

In the open response section of the
survey, there were many fabulous statements and questions. The responses were so heartfelt and
insightful that they just may have given me sermon fodder for the next
twenty-five years! Here are some of the
questions that were recorded:

Do You listen at all?

What could we do to further support Your presence?

How do I handle it when bad things happen to good people?

How should I live my life better?

Should we proselytize?

Where were You during the Shoah?

Where is the reset button for the universe?

What happens when we die and why is it such a mystery?

Why is the sky blue?

While I certainly don’t claim to have
the definitive answers to any of these questions, I think they are worth
exploring. I’ll begin to address
possible answers to some of these in our weekly email blasts. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua
Heschel taught, “We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we
think we have all the answers.”[8] If we desire to heed the call of the Holiness
Code, to lead holy lives in imitation of God’s holiness, then we should be exploring these sorts of questions.

Significant
numbers of respondents to the survey agreed that evil exists in the world and that
innocent people suffer without explanation—not because of God’s presence in the
universe, but despite it. This
theological conundrum, known as the question of theodicy, which I spoke about a
bit on Rosh Hashanah, has long dominated religious conversation. Addressing this dilemma is an important
aspect of responding to the call of the holiness code.

We
know that God did not create water crises in Flint, Michigan and in Puerto
Rico. Human beings did that.

We
know that God did not attempt to remove health care protections from millions
of American citizens. Human beings did
that.

We
know that God did not create the nuclear weapons with which a belligerent North
Korea is threatening the world. Human
beings did that.

We
know that God did not manufacture the guns used to terrorize Congresspersons at
a baseball game, or students at school, or worshippers at church. Human beings did that.

We
know that God was not the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront, or any of
the other fascist groups that have fomented racism and white supremacy within
our country and throughout the world.
Human beings did that.

And
because humans bear the responsibility for creating these problems within our
world, it’s up to us to seek solutions.
As my colleague, Rabbi Michael Latz has noted, “Blaming God for all the
bad stuff in the world is immoral.
Convenient, but immoral. If we’re
truly partners with God in the ongoing work of creation, then it is time to
stand up and act like partners.”[9] In other words, part of our pursuit of
holiness requires that we lead the struggle for justice and kindness in our
society.

That
being said, striving toward holiness is not the same as working toward a Boy
Scout or Girl Scout merit badge. As one
response to the survey noted, “We don’t have a God score.” Now, I think the original commenter meant
that, in his opinion, as good as we may and should be, humans can never become
“Godly;” we can never attain a god-like status.
Still, he writes, “being better people is good enough for me.” Another survey participant quoted a familiar
statement from the old Gates of Prayer:
“Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on you.”[10] We may look to God for moral guidance, but
ultimately the day-to-day work of upholding society and performing acts of
social justice falls to us.

Our
Haftarah this morning is drawn from the Book of Isaiah. The prophet scolds the Israelites, whom he accuses
of adopting false piety—going through the motions of prayer and fasting without
turning their hearts and minds and hands to deeds of goodness. He reminds his audience that what God truly
desires from us extends far beyond prayer and sacrifice:

We may never be able to attain
holiness at a level equivalent to God.
We may never be fully worthy of the appellation “godly.” But we can take action, guided by God’s
instruction, to make God’s presence be felt amongst us.

Author Mary Blye Kramer converted to
Judaism from the Baptist faith about twelve years ago. Her journey was not without difficulty, she
notes: her husband of 30 years left her, she was called a “heretic” by a radio
show host, and she lost friends and work opportunities. In particular, Kramer had to resign from
three committees with which she had volunteered at her church.

The hardest community for her to
leave behind was the “homebound community,” made up of elderly members deeply
entrenched in the church. Kramer tells
of the difficulty she anticipated in saying goodbye to her friend Estelle, a
vivacious member of this group who had been the church’s first female deacon.

Kramer
writes:

As I sat beside her to tell her the news that was shattering my
world, I stuttered. “Estelle, I know this
will be tough to hear. I know you love Jesus and I know that you believe that
Jesus is the way to heaven, and I know...."

Estelle interrupted me and I froze. She
apparently had already heard I was converting.

"Let me tell you what I believe,"
she said, "I believe in you. Now let's move on. Tell me all about your
spiritual journey and where you'll be converting and how you're feeling and how
your family is treating you and what you've been doing this week."[12]

In this holiest season of the Jewish
year, when we are thinking about our personal spiritual journeys, when we are
taking stock of our lives and examining what room we have left within ourselves
for a relationship with God, perhaps Estelle gives us an important starting
point. Perhaps we cannot develop our own
theologies, and forge our own paths to truth, unless we first learn to believe
in one another.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, the campus
rabbi at Northwestern University, reminds us that as we explore our liturgy
throughout these High Holy Days, the “language of the
liturgy is in the plural, not the singular. We're not praying for our
individual selves, but for all of us.”[13] If we continue to pray for one another, to
embrace one another, to believe in one another regardless of race, class,
gender, or faith, then we can strive toward holiness and draw nearer to the
messianic age.

May
this be our goal in the coming year, and in working to this end, may we all be
deemed worthy of being inscribed in the book of life, blessing, and peace.